Automotive interiors and trunks were traditionally lined with various types of fabrics, but in more recent years tufted and needle punched carpets are used mostly.
Needle punched carpets, as known in the automotive industry comprise in general of:                At least a needle punched decorative face layer, produced from fibrous webs which may be made on a card, and which are cross lapped to increase area weight. The thus formed web is reinforced and consolidated by the reciprocating action of barbed needles repeatedly penetrating the web so that the material becomes matted and decreases in thickness. Eventually a second needling step can be used to obtain a surface pattern from the action of crown or fork needles, for instance a dilour or ribbed surface, and        Eventually one or more backing layers at the backside of the carpet, for instance a latex, thermoplastic, felt or foam layer, or combinations of those materials.        
EP 0518690 A discloses the use of conjugate fibers together with polypropylene fibers to form the needle punched top layer. The needle punched mat is subjected to a heat treatment to melt the conjugate fibers and to further bind the needle punched top layer increasing the overall performance of the so formed carpet. According to the disclosure by using conjugate fibers in a staple fiber mixture as disclosed the needle punched carpet does not need a backing layer.
Hollow fibers are mainly used for filling of bedding material or outerwear, due to the increase volume by weight the material is lighter and due to the higher level of air entrapped the thermal insulation is increased. Furthermore it is known to use hollow fibers for acoustic felts, partly used as acoustic backing layer for both needle punched and tufted automotive carpets. However the use of staple fibers with hollow cross section for needle punched carpet face layer has not been shown before. It is widely believed that in particularly a hollow cross section is prone to a higher risk of fibrillation or breakage and therefore would not work for a needle punched carpet surface layer, prone to abrasion due to wear.
Automotive carpets are subjected to wear mainly from shoes. The wear of an automotive carpet is more local abrasion due to the movement of the shoes than a compression due to normal walking (typical wear for home and industrial carpeting). In particularly the area under brake and gear pedals is heavy subjected to such a wear. However, also the trunk when heavily used for loads is subjected to an increase in wear. Therefore the automotive industry uses the abrasion performance as one of the important criteria for selecting suitable needle punched carpets. Abrasion properties are often but not exclusively measured using a Tabor taber test measurement according to SAE standard. The maximum weight loss during the first 300 cycles and/or the maximum amount of cycles before a first hole is visible, are evaluation criteria that differ per car maker.
To reach the criteria of car makers very often the weight of the basic mat is increased. However the trend in the automotive industry is to more lightweight products, as every kilo of material used in a vehicle is directly related to the fuel efficiency and CO2 release of that vehicle.
Another criterion is the visual appearance of the carpet after a period of wear, or at the end of an abrasion test. Due to the wear, damage and/or breakage of the top fibers occurs, this can cause a whitening effect of in particularly (black-) coloured carpets. This whitening effect is an unwanted feature that decreases the use expectance of a carpet surface. In particularly with the needle punch carpets made of solid fibers this poses a problem. As this whitening effect is a prominent problem for needle punch carpets momentarily on the market. These type of carpets are mainly accepted in the mid and lower segment cars and not in high end cars.